Self-describing sentence

[Guest]

"This sentence contains ten words, eighteen syllables, and sixty-four letters."

The above sentence describes itself. Who can complete the sentence:

"This sentence contains AA words, BB syllables, CC letters, DD spaces, EE commas, and FF period."

(HINT: FF = 1 )

Extra credit:

"This sentence contains () a's, () b's, () c's, ... () y's, and () z's."

[Guest]

By the way, numbers must be spelled out (else where's the challenge?).

[Guest]

No takers? Come on, it's actually quite easy! Really! Give it a good try before you peek at my answer (which includes the number of hyphens, just for fun):

This sentence contains twenty words, thirty-six syllables, one hundred eighteen letters, nineteen spaces, one hyphen, six commas, and one period.

[unreality]

does 2 letters mean 2 digits?

[Guest]

does 2 letters mean 2 digits?

No, not necessarily. I just used two letters so people would realize I was using them as a placeholder rather than a letter. (If you use "one", you will want to change the plural noun to a singular; for example, "one comma" instead of "one commas".)

[Guest]

Using variations (e.g. "This sentence has..." instead of "This sentence contains...") will give you different answers, as will including more, or fewer, categories.

You can also "cheat" by saying something like, "This sentence contains AA words, BB syllables, CC letters, <whatever else>, and one mispeled word.", misspelling "mispeled" however you need to in order to make your letter count come out correctly. Cheap trick, but fun.

[Guest]

So it's easy to start -

count the period, count the commas, count the spaces and insert the numbers. Then count the words and insert. (using an assumption for the replacement words).

Then it gets a little tricky.

Do you mean number of letters total, or number of letters used regardless of frequency?

[Guest]

Do you mean number of letters total, or number of letters used regardless of frequency?

Total number of letters, not unique letters. For example, "letter" has six letters and should be counted as six.

[roolstar]

I'm pretty sure of this answer...

AA = EIGHTEEN

BB = THIRTY-TWO

CC = ONE HUNDRED AND TEN

DD = NINETEEN

EE = FIVE

FF = ONE

This sentence contains EIGHTEEN words, THIRTY-TWO syllables, ONE HUNDRED AND TEN letters, NINETEEN spaces, FIVE commas, and ONE period.

PS: Writersblock, you missed a tiny little thing in your assumption I think. (Spaces)

[Guest]

"This sentence contains AA words, BB syllables, CC letters, DD spaces, EE commas, and FF period."

Here's a stab at it:

"This sentence contains TWENTY-THREE words, THIRTY-NINE syllables, ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-ONE letters, TWENTY spaces, THREE hyphens, SIX commas, and ONE period."

riKesH

[roolstar]

Here's a stab at it:

"This sentence contains TWENTY-THREE words, THIRTY-NINE syllables, ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-ONE letters, TWENTY spaces, THREE hyphens, SIX commas, and ONE period."

riKesH

Your sentence contains TWENTY spaces...

[roolstar]

I'm pretty sure of this answer...

AA = EIGHTEEN

BB = THIRTY-TWO

CC = ONE HUNDRED AND TEN

DD = NINETEEN

EE = FIVE

FF = ONE

This sentence contains EIGHTEEN words, THIRTY-TWO syllables, ONE HUNDRED AND TEN letters, NINETEEN spaces, FIVE commas, and ONE period.

PS: Writersblock, you missed a tiny little thing in your assumption I think. (Spaces)

This sentence contains NINETEEN words, THIRTY-TWO syllables, ONE HUNDRED AND TEN letters, EIGHTEEN spaces, FIVE commas, and ONE period.

Edited January 17, 2008 by roolstar

[Perhaps check it again]

"ONE HUNDRED AND TEN" is not standard.

If that number, 110, were correct as a for instance, then it must be written as "one hundred ten."

With this correction, this will naturally change the answer in the solution.

Also, post # 12 is missing the count of the number of hyphens.